


Intersection

by WraithWriting



Series: The Children of Gomorrah [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Paranormal, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-13 06:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19596166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WraithWriting/pseuds/WraithWriting





	Intersection

**I**

Molly waited in line, impatient as the day’s sweat dried on her neck, plastering locks of her golden hair to her nape. She dressed like everyone else in the damned stream of men and women: blue jeans and a dark-green, button-up shirt. Above either shirt pocket was a patch, one with the name _Glenstroke_ and one that read _Custodial_ . A comforting _beep_ came from the front of the line, and that stream of people now had one less. 

_Beep_ — another custodian clocked out and left the building. The line moved, and she moved with it, excited to be done with the week.

She peeked around the burly man in front of her and saw Gretchen clocking out. The little machine flashed with the words _Gretchen Thompson_ and _clocked out_ and _2:45.37 a.m._ She bounced on the balls of her feet, until she noticed and stopped — she didn’t want to seem too eager. Blending in was how she survived. In an ant hill full of drones, she didn’t want to be the one poor sucker who stood out, the one the humans would identify and pluck the limbs off of.

The line moved quicker now, and only eleven custodians were before her; some jested and others took their early morning grumpiness out on those in front of them, but most of them would be happy when they finally went home, took off their shoes, and went about whatever routines they had established during their years working for the hotel.

Barney swiped his name badge through the slot in the machine; the screen flashed with _Bernard Everly_ and _clocked out_ and _2:47.11 a.m._ “That’s it, y’all,” he said, turning to see the mixture of peeved and delighted faces in the line behind him. “Time to start this party.” But he was tired and said this same line, or a variant of it, every Friday. He walked out the door to a the jeers and sarcastic remarks of his colleagues, following the others to the staff parking lot behind the hotel. They walked like zombies in the movies, slow and spread out.

Molly bit her lip, hoping she would have time. She would have been much further along in the line — _should_ have been — but these others had beat her to it. _If it wasn’t for Mark,_ she thought. Mark had pulled her aside before she had a chance to step in line; Mark had talked to her for _five minutes_ ; Mark had flirted with her — his own kind of routine. _Mark had better keep his fucking hands to himself._

She had heard stories about him from some of the other — _unattractive_ — ladies, stories about him and the _attractive_ ladies. The stories served as warnings, and they were told to every new — _attractive_ — lady that came on Glenstroke Hotel’s custodial staff.

Mark was the supervisor.

Molly shivered at the thought of him.

The storytellers called him _handsy_ , but she didn’t think that was the appropriate word for it. _More like_ gropey _,_ she thought. Yes, that was the word. And she knew to keep her space when around Mark, knew to discourage his advances, knew to not be _caught alone_ with him. Some of the stories told of other — _attractive_ — ladies getting _caught alone_ with him, and she didn’t like how those ended — _one of them ended with the lady-in-question getting fired and giving birth to a bastard nine months later_. She didn’t want to be another story added to the list.

But he had a way of getting the things he wanted — like tonight when he cornered her and would not stop talking. _I just wanted to get in line,_ she thought, pitying herself, hoping the storytellers hadn’t seen them.

That was one of Mark’s strengths: he knew which ladies were too polite to turn him down outright — Molly was one of them.

She cursed herself for it.

Charley swiped his card downward — _beep_ . The little machine read _Charles Henson_ and _clocked in_ and _2:48.17 a.m._ “Well shit,” he said in his southern drawl, reading the _clocked in_ portion on the computer screen.

“You forgot to clock in?” the man behind Charley said in a jovial tone.

“Coulda’ sworn I did,” Charley said, eyes bugged out as he scratched his graying head of hair.

“Talk with Mark,” the man said. “He’ll fix you up.”

“Yeah,” Charley said, stepping out of line and marching up to Mark’s office, a place high above the workers, with windows looking out on them.

Molly glanced up, watching Charley climb the metal stairs to the office; she could see Mark looking through half-closed blinds, sipping on coffee, his thick glasses shining queerly from the overhead light. She looked away — she could’ve sworn he was staring at her.

She was all nerves and anticipation — she had her _ritual_ to get to. And she could almost _taste_ it — _delicious_.

_I wonder if Mark thinks I’m fat._ The thought shot through her mind like a bullet, but the disgust lasted like fallout from a nuke. _Oh god, I hope he’s not breaking me down._ If she wasn’t careful, Mark would ruin her plans for the night.

She had thought of reporting him to Human Resources before, spilling everything she’d heard, draining herself of every inappropriate comment and gesture made to her. But she didn’t have what it took to do that. Her grandfather would have called it _grit_ , and her father would’ve called it _spunk_ , but she supposed it was a good thing neither of them could see that she didn’t have whatever _it_ was. They were both dead and couldn’t see.

The burly man in front of her swiped his card — _beep_. “Adios,” he said to no one.

She snapped out of her thoughts, fumbling for the name badge clipped to her right shirt-pocket.

The man left the building and it was her turn to clock out. She swiped — _beep_ . And the machine read _Molly Eldritch_ and _clocked out_ and _2:48.44 a.m._ She kept a calm composure but inside she was giddy with delight. She almost ran out of the door to follow the others into the parking lot.

_Less than ten minutes,_ she thought, walking fast. _That’s all I’ll have — I think I can make it._ Her sneakers hit asphalt and she looked out upon the mostly empty rows of parking spaces, as few cars pulled in and filled some of those spaces — custodians from the next shift. She knew where she parked — she always parked there. She could’ve navigated the lot blindfolded. _I’ve heard of people doing that kind of shit,_ she thought. _Something to do with a movie — a bunch of morons._

Her Jeep was waiting for her at the base of an overhead lamp. The car was illuminated by day-like light. She walked twenty of the seventy feet to her car as other cars pulled out of the lot. She wouldn’t be the last to leave and that was comforting.

Glenstroke Hotel had put in those brilliantly bright lamps the year before after a woman was raped behind a car. The woman had sued the hotel for improper lighting and the hotel settled; she claimed someone could’ve seen her if the lot was properly lit. It was bogus and everyone knew it — just the kind of thing to happen in America. It seemed there was always some fresh idiot with a new idiot claim against _this company_ or _that corporation_ , all to collect from the consequences of an idiot decision. But that woman wasn’t the first to be raped in the employee parking lot, and she wasn’t even the worst case — some were found in the morning, drugged and bloody. And those blindingly bright bulbs wouldn’t stop future rapes from taking place, and everyone knew it.

Molly felt bad for the woman when it happened — still did — but it had come out that she had been in the lot to buy cocaine, and the man who raped her was her dealer.

“So much for customer satisfaction,” she had overheard Mark say to one of the supervisors under him.

“I dunno,” the other had said. “She might’ve felt guilty by how _satisfied_ she had been.”

The two of them had laughed it up, thinking that no one was listening to them. _Not that they would’ve cared if they’d known,_ she thought, reaching her car under what some had called the _sex lights_.

Molly unlocked her car, opened the door, and got in, closing the door when she was safe inside. She put the key in the ignition and turned the car on, the low _hum_ of the Jeep was soothing. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out her purse. She then unzipped it and looked inside — a wave of horror flushed through her.

_It’s not here?_

The taste of her ritual began to sour.

Her hands ravaged the purse until one of them touched the familiar leather of her wallet. _Thank god,_ she thought, pulling the wallet out. She stared at the thing, relieved, knowing that her ritual couldn’t commence without the crimson rectangle — without the credit card within.

She opened the wallet and looked inside — just to be sure. And there it was. That great light above her gave her silver Visa a shine. She took a labored breath, placed the card back, put the wallet on the passenger seat, buckled up, shifted the car into gear, and drove out of the lot and away from work.

It was Friday — technically Saturday morning — but it was truly the end of her work week.

She looked at the time, wondering if her ritual was ruined: 2:53 a.m.

_I think I can make it,_ Molly thought. _If I hurry, I think I can._

She throttled the gas, and her Jeep drove at fifteen miles above the speed limit.

  


**II**

Aiden Reeves pulled out of his girlfriend’s driveway — well, her parents’ driveway — and his Charger _screeched_ as he peeled away. He smirked, even through the rage, the sound a defiant release; it was frustrated, angry, a burst that was like the blue balls he now had.

He plugged his iPhone into its charger, thumbing through iTunes as he cruised the sleepy, bourgeois neighborhood — he set it to shuffle and turned the volume down to three.

He had no doubt his girl had watched him go from the bedroom window on the second floor, the room he had just been ejected from. He snarled. _Parents gone for the weekend, I brought protection, and we’ve been going out for three months — what gives?_

Having never had sex before, Aiden was somewhat empathetic to his girl’s desire for patience. He just wished she would’ve had more desire for him than for her principles — he suspected most other girls would’ve caved.

But Becky Rivera was not like those girls. Her parents taught her different. _Those queers taught her the_ value _of abstinence,_ Aiden thought.

He turned onto a main street, westbound.

The song changed and dripped from his speakers; he almost didn’t hear it because the volume was low, and because of the many thoughts running around in his head, but he recognized the song. _Get outta here,_ he thought, and he skipped to the next track. The following tune was more to his liking and he let it play.

_I could’ve been more persuasive,_ he thought, his mind drifting back to that rage-inducing topic. _I’m not_ unattractive _or anything — maybe a seven — so I’ve got to be able to convince her._

_Slow down,_ he thought, though the words in his mind felt forced upon him, like those other times before.

He looked at the speedometer — _shit_ . He was going faster than he had thought. _Girl troubles will kill a man._

He didn’t think there would be any cops around — _they’re too busy terrorizing minority majority communities to bother the bourgeoisie._

The city of Blooming Heights — _jokingly called Sleepy Hills by many residents_ — was like many other multicultural cities. Cultural ghettos, created by self-segregation, split up the map by racial lines. _The Blacks have their cut, the Asians have their cut, the Mexicans have their cut, and so on — racial in-group preference at its finest_ . Minority communities were rife with crime, with local gangs like FKA, Yakushi, and La Raza. The Whites had their gangs as well, with chapters of both The Hellhounds and the infamous Neo-nazi group, the SSA (Schutzstaffel America). _They can all get stuffed._

But to Blooming Heights more unsavory folks, the city had a different name. _The slum lords and prostitutes and drug pushers call it Gomorrah’s Ashes._ Gomorrah because it was in northern Nevada. Gomorrah because Las Vegas was the popular sister in the south. Gomorrah because it had just as much claim to be called sin city.

If Las Vegas, the overshadowing sister, was Sodom, Blooming Heights was Gomorrah. And because Sodom and Gomorrah had burned, Blooming Heights was _Gomorrah’s Ashes_ , resurrected like a phoenix.

Aiden turned right on Spencer, heading north — heading home. _Home at last,_ he thought. _I’ll put this shitty day behind me and I’ll be home at last._ But home was just a two bedroom apartment shared by four guys. _And they’ll be wondering how my night went — they’ll probably ask me._

_I could always lie._

_They would know. You’re a fucking virgin — they would know._

Aiden shuddered at the word _virgin_. It was too feminine.

He drove passed the old factory, the one that never bounced back after its innards were burned out, killing five workers and gifting twenty more with scars they would live with until they returned to dust. _I’ll die a virgin. Just like that kid, Elliot._

Elliot was nineteen when he started working at the old factory — he died six months later. No one knew whether or not the kid had had sex before he was swallowed by flame — certainly no past lovers surfaced — but that didn’t stop the word from spreading. It started in the kid’s high school, the one he hadn’t graduated from, but it was soon the truth and nothing but the truth in every jr. high and high school in Blooming Heights.

The lie ran halfway around the world before the truth could get its pants on. The truth should stop fucking around.

The other _truth_ was only spoken in hushed tones. The truth that Elliot’s ghost now haunted the old factory.

_I won’t go out like that kid_ . _I’m not going to die a virgin._ Aiden thought about turning around, thought about persuading Becky to have sex with him — thought about what he might do if she refused. Would he slap her around? Would he _force_ himself on her?

His blue eyes were darkened by his mind, but thinking was all he did. Well, thinking and creating fantasies.

Just down the street Aiden saw the red hand blinking with a number next to it — _10… 9… 8…_ — he throttled the accelerator, pushing his Charger to make the light. He glanced at the clock: _2:47 a.m._ — few people would be driving at this hour. Even if the light turned red, he wouldn’t have to worry about — _slow down_ — … other cars.

_Twice in one night?_ Aiden put his foot to the break, thinking about the last time _the whispers_ came at such short intervals. And he was twenty feet from the intersection of Spencer and Abadel Street, going forty miles an hour, when the light turned red.

He looked down Abadel Street as he approached: and there, already plowing through the crosswalk on his left, were the demon eyes of a crimson Honda. He slammed on his breaks — his tires _screeched_ and he lurched forward — and his car stopped, its front poking through the thick, white line it was supposed to be behind.

The crimson demon’s horn _blasted_ as it passed, and Aiden saw the driver staring him down as he drove by, a single, middle finger sticking up so he could see. He watched the car go down Abadel Street until the buildings blocked his view, and the light turned green soon after — there were no other cars to follow the Honda.

Aiden wiped sweat off his brow. _Fuck,_ he thought. _I could’ve been_ hit _._ But that wasn’t the worst of it, and he knew — _I could’ve_ died _._

He accelerated, his heart pounding like a war drum, anxiety washing over him. And he passed Abadel Street as a new song played through his speakers.

  


**III**

Edwin Carver drove south in his Honda until he hit Abadel Street, at which point he made a left, heading for the hills that gave the city its local name of Sleepy Hills. _The hills — then the mesa,_ he thought, as he drove toward his gathering. _The mesa’s grove._ It was their regular meeting grounds; well, regular since Bobby’s father caught wind of what they had been doing in his basement.

But they had grown since then and would’ve needed to relocate anyway.

Unlike Aiden, Edwin had no problem getting girls to do whatever he wanted. Most chicks were into his rockin’ bod’; two-hundred pounds of muscle, a low fat percentage, all wrapped up by his six-foot stature. He was the kind of guy moms thought of when banging their husbands, the kind of guy most dads didn’t want anywhere near their daughters. _With good fuckin’ reason._

Those dads saw right through his bullshit. _But that’s half the fun, getting around_ those dads _._ Edwin had gotten around them many times — it was almost comical how easy it was. _Thank the gods for feminism. Girls lining up to get laid — like a shish kabob; my dick’s the skewer, and all the bitches are the tasty meats. It’s sex on-demand, no prior relationship necessary, no expectation for a_ connection _, just a session of hot and sweaty sex — full of lust._

“Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am,” Edwin said, smirking with mirth.

But his smirk disappeared. Oh, he had enjoyed the meaningless sex… but now. _Everything’s changed._

He hadn’t gotten laid in weeks. And it wasn’t until now that he realized how long it had been.

Edwin drove down Abadel Street, his mind racing as fast as his car, remembering the things he had _seen_ on the mesa. He passed Reacher Elementary, the school that had barely made local news for its massive child abuse scandal — five teachers had been convicted on molestation and child endangerment charges, two of which had already been brutally murdered in prison. _They deserved everything done to them… no, they deserved more._

He thought of what _he_ would’ve done if he shared a cell with one of them — that made him happy. Of course, the two who had died were the only males in the lot. _No chance of getting to those degenerates now… maybe_ they _could reach them._

_They_ were his new gods, the ones he had met on the mesa.

Local media called the SSA a Neo-nazi group — _technically true._ The group advocated for national socialist policies — _or democratic socialist, if you prefer._ Yes, there was little that separated their policies from that of Bernie Sanders. Bill Gregor, SSA’s head, supported Bernie in the primaries — _until he cucked to Clinton._ Edwin smirked. _Bernie bent over and got fucked bloody by Hillary’s unlubed strap-on. A royal screwing only a politician could give._

He had a _Fuck Trump_ bumper sticker on the back of his car, but he hated Hillary more for what she did to _Uncle Sanders_ , as Bill used to call him. _Good ol’ Uncle Sanders._

But the key difference between democratic socialists and Schutzstaffel America was SSA’s _other_ nazi ties. _Not the race shit — we couldn’t give a fuck about race._ No, it was their dedication to seeking the knowledge behind the mysteries of the universe. They had an ever-increasing interest in the occult and the supernatural. _And it’s fuckin’ paying out like a womanizer at a whorehouse._

_That_ was why their gathering was done in secret and in the early hours of the day.

Edwin had his hooded cloak in the trunk, along with the mask to wear under it. _Total anonymity._ Not as if anyone would ever find them in their little clearing atop the mesa.

He passed Clarmonte Street, and he shook his head in disgust as he thought of the next intersection he’d pass: _Spencer._ He knew the streets better than he ever had, because the meetings had diverged to two-to-three nights a week, up from the once-a-week occasion they had been.

The sidewalk on his right was lined with oaks, and his headlights revealed of the trees most of what the street lights hid. There was something funny about those knotted trees — _like hundreds of twisted faces watching me pass by._ He got gooseflesh just thinking about it, as he considered the idea that _something_ was watching him.

_Give him to me._

The thought came sudden and Edwin felt the urge to slam on the breaks, pull the car over, get out, and never drive it again. He looked in the backseat — _nothing._ His wide eyes went back to the road — Spencer was coming quick, but the light was red. _Good, I’ll stop and take a breath._

It wasn’t his thought and he knew it. _It was more like a command from a boss than an inner whisper…_ more like the stuff he’d encountered on the mesa.

The light turned green ahead.

Edwin took a deep breath. _The stopping will have to wait._ And he no longer knew whether he liked the idea of stopping after hearing the command. He sped up — _fear goes out the window the faster you go._ He neared the crosswalk.

_I really didn’t hear anything,_ he tried to convince himself. But he knew _this_ was the kind of shit he and SSA were getting into. They _wanted_ to reach out to entities and spirits; was he _really_ surprised that those things might reach out to him in return? _No, it was nothing._

Edwin drove past the crosswalk when he heard the _screech_ of tires on his right — his head darted to see the headlights of the other car. Terror gripped him as he thought the other driver would hit him, but the car stopped just beyond the first line of the crosswalk. _Fuck you,_ he thought, slamming his hand on the horn.

“Fuck you!” he said passing the car. And he shot his middle finger at the other driver — a drive-by flipping of the bird. _I hope the bastard sees it, too._

His car cleared the intersection, and he looked in his rear view: the street sign seemed to mock him. _Spencer_.

_That fuckin’ fruit-fag,_ he thought. _Of course I’d find a degenerate driving up Spencer._

Edwin’s hatred of Spencer came from his knowledge of the man, Richard Spencer, a leader in the Alt-right. _Fuckin’ controlled opposition if I’ve ever seen it. The perfect boogeyman for far-left activists._ SSA had been falsely labeled an _Alt-right_ hate-group. _We only hate the rich, just like the other socialists… I guess we hate Richard, too. Just the rich and Richard._

He chuckled, anxiety fading. And he thought of the GIF he’d regularly play: it was clipped from a video of Richard Spencer getting punched out by a member of Antifa. _Fuck, I would’ve punched him out, too._

This image played in his head all the way down Abadel Street, but as the street turned into Gridshan Hills Drive, and his car drove up-and-down the foothills toward the mesa, he thought of the _things_ he would see… and of the voice that he definitely had _not_ heard.

  


**IV**

The midnight machine raced over the blacktop of Yarsoth Ave., the dim glow of the street lights illuminating the road ahead. Molly was speeding — twenty miles over the posted limit. She passed an accusatory sign, but she knew these streets. In her three years working the night shift at Glenstroke Hotel, she had seen no more than two cops on her way home.

This night would be no different.

But what Molly didn’t know — did not realize — was that the headlights of her Jeep hadn’t been engaged. In the following months, and for the rest of her life, she would question her actions the night she forgot to turn those lights on. The _why_ of it reigning supreme. She certainly had been distracted looking for her wallet, and the blaring parking lot lights didn’t help her lapse of mind — these would be the weak answers she’d give herself.

Whatever answers came later, she wouldn’t question why she was speeding — _that_ she would remember. For food — the fast kind. Her weekly routine — her all-important _ritual_.

It was Friday and her _ritual_ had to be carried out. Clock out at 2:45 a.m., rush to her car, bolt down the streets, and get to _Tacos Fresco_ before closing time at 3:00 a.m. — and _order two tacos, a shredded beef quesadilla, and two chicken taquitos_.

But it was 2:55 a.m. and Molly was doing her damndest to make her _ritual_ happen. _Not tonight,_ she thought. _It won’t be ruined tonight._

But after tonight, Molly Eldritch would drive with eyes wide open, following every traffic law (no matter how dumb), and she would go straight home on Fridays.

And the workers at Tacos Fresco would never again see Molly’s car pull up to their window. They would hear what happened in the next morning’s news, but they wouldn’t know she was involved.

_Give him to me._

Molly was startled by the sudden thought and it was all she could do to keep the car in her lane. She looked left and right and behind, all the while driving as if she were on her way to see her dying mother in St. Gressil’s Hospital. _That’s odd,_ she thought. _It almost sounded… out of my mind._

But she decided it was all imagined and kept driving toward Tacos Fresco.

  


**V**

Aiden passed the second crosswalk of Abadel Street, and almost immediately after his back tires cleared the second white line, his phone began to play the next song over the speakers. The music was still turned down to three, but when he heard those upbeat drums and the opening guitar riff of “Rats” by Ghost, he turned the volume up to twenty.

_Yes,_ he thought. _Something to get my head out of this shit._ He head-banged and mimicked playing the drums with one hand as the other firmly gripped the steering wheel of his Charger. And he was instantaneously lifted from his troubles — the anger at the driver who flipped him off, thoughts of the girlfriend who wouldn’t fuck him — all drifted away as _Cardinal Copia_ sang.

His car sped down the street to the glorious tune, a sound crafted in heaven to be presented to humanity and sung in hell, like Prometheus and his gift of fire. _Ghost, our children will look back at them like this generation looks at The Beatles,_ Aiden thought. _Only, Ghost will actually deserve the praise._

The song was nearly to its end, but Aiden didn’t want to listen to anything else — _this song will play at my funeral._ He snatched up his phone, turned it on, went into iTunes, and put it on repeat. _There,_ he thought. _No more —_

_Slow down._

Aiden’s eyes went to the road, but it was open, not a car in sight. However, he _was_ going fast — too fast. _That song gets me going._ He let his foot off the accelerator and turned his music down to fifteen.

_Thrice!_ he thought. _Three times. What the fuck is going on?_

Nearly in a panic, Aiden remembered why he and his mother had moved from their beautiful home in southern Blooming Heights to the crappy apartment in the Blacks’ part of the city. With his memories came a creeping _urgency_.

Aiden grew up there, that small yet wonderful house. Everspring was a part of the Whites cut of that city within Nevada — it had the best parks and the surrounding area had many well-groomed trees. Green was all around. In this safe environment, mother was too protective in most areas and too trusting in the areas that mattered. _The whispers — they were why we moved._ He hadn’t thought of it in a long time — didn’t _want_ to think about it.

_But it wasn’t_ really _because of_ the whispers _… it was because of the warning and what happened after._

From birth, Wanda Trudger was an attendee of Everspring Evangelical Communion Church (EECC for short). She was twenty when her boyfriend got her pregnant — out of wedlock. To receive support from her church, she needed to become a member. This required her to marry and take membership classes along with the father.

Wanda married George Reeves; and they became Mr. and Mrs. George Reeves. _They split up when I was seven._

They became members of EECC. _A fuckin’ impotent knot of snakes._

Wanda gave birth to Aiden five months later. _I was the freakin’ joy of their lives — their eventual divorce as evidence._

Aiden drove through the green light at Blidgeworth Street, and he glanced at the little chapel to his right. Two angelic statues of stone stood sentry on either side of the doors to _Living Hope Baptist_ . He scowled and looked to the road, “Rats” still playing on repeat. _Their hope can die._

It came rushing over him then — the savage memories. The time _the whispers_ came and came and didn’t go until _it_ happened.

_I was fourteen. It was the middle of summer._

Seven years after his father left, Aiden was surprisingly happy. He was going to the youth group at EECC, he had five close friends and knew most of the fifty-seven middle schoolers who regularly went. And they all adored their youth leader, Pastor Marquis.

Marquis Brown, a thirty-four year old college dropout, had pumped up the middle schoolers since the beginning of summer for an event of epic proportions — an overnighter on church grounds full of food, candy, and video games. Friday night to Saturday morning, July 11th through the 12th. It was to be a patriotic summer bash, taking place one week after Fourth of July weekend (so the kids could celebrate with their families, too).

The parents loved Pastor Marquis, even though he never went to seminary. And some of the more politically attuned, Democrat parents were ecstatic with how much he looked like the — at-the-time — recently-elected Mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, though this was always mentioned with the caveat that he was much darker than the mayor. He was a charmer. And though his theology may have been off in some areas, the parents loved the respect he had for family time. And they especially loved his ability to get the kids excited about something and keep them out of the house. _Yeah, the parents liked the quiet he gave them._

Programs like C.O.R.E. (Christ’s Operatives and Responsible Educators) were what made Pastor Marquis popular with both parents and the kids. _Because we were all freakin’ kids. Fuck. Kids, man! I could strangle every one of those fucking Marks and Deborahs, those bourgeois cocksuckers._

Aiden had signed up and paid for the highly anticipated overnighter. However, the afternoon of Friday, July 11th, 2008, he began to hear _the whispers_ over and over. _The voice, intuition — whatever it is — told me to stay home. Mother nearly had a fit trying to convince me to go._

_Don’t go, Aiden. Stay home, Aiden. Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go!_

_I wanted them to go away. But they saved me._

Thinking about it made him realize how troubled he would’ve been had he gone that night. _Fucked up beyond repair._

As he drove up Spencer, Aiden was vaguely aware of the businesses on his right and the walled-off residences on his left. Ahead was the Donwar intersection with a red light. And as he slowed the car, he let Cardinal Copia of Ghost minister to him.

He realized that listening to “Rats” on repeat just would not do, not when the entirety of Prequelle was so fuckin’ good. Snatching up his iPhone, he searched until he found the correct band and album, and he selected “Faith” to play. He’d let the whole album play out from there. And as the song began to play, he set down his phone and —

A blast of sound hit Aiden’s ear from his right. His head shot up: he was running the red. And his attention was drawn to the glaring lights of the turning car to his right, horn still blaring, a loud accusation of the law he had broken.

Aiden nearly slammed his foot on the break. _I’d block the intersection,_ he thought, and he drove on through, speeding up instead.

The horn still went off. The driver, who was intent on waking every soul in Blooming Heights, had his right hand turn signal blinking.

“Motherfucker!” Aiden said. “I’m going!” His car cleared the intersection.

The other car ceased its accostations as its driver made the right.

_How far up will this bitch drive?_ Aiden still had another ten minutes to go until he reached the apartment he and his roommates shared. He peeked at his rear view mirror, watching the headlights of the other car as if it were an inter-dimensional entity.

But the other driver didn’t show signs of aggressive intent.

So Aiden’s mind went back to that terrible Sunday morning in July, 2008, the morning he found out about what had happened at Everspring Evangelical Communion Church the Friday before. The whole reason he and mother had moved some thirty miles north — away from all the shit that went down.

There was a palpable disquiet among the congregation that morning, and Aiden knew something was up when only he and three others showed up for youth group. _The whispers_ didn’t come to him then, but he didn’t need them to _feel_ the darkness all around — the middle school youth room was thick with the presence of evil. True evil, not that shity, B-grade stuff from horror flicks.

But Aiden and the other kids were whisked away before long, taken to their parents in the _Big_ _Church_ (that’s what he and his friends called the adult service). The pastor, Dr. Langlee, spoke that morning, much like any other Sunday — but that day was different.

Aiden’s mother hadn’t a clue what was going on, a testament to her unwavering trust in the broken souls that made up the Body of Christ. But as Pastor Julius spoke, her face contorted into one of unmasked horror. She loved her son, she did; she loved him enough to leave that wretched church after it all came out.

For months, Pastor Marquis had been grooming the preteen members of C.O.R.E. He taught them unbiblical things, things that were sweet to learn but sour in practice. Rebellion, not in outward expression, but inward, directed at the values each child had grown up with. He taught them to keep what they learned under him quiet, even to lie to their parents if they had to (silent holiness, he’d called it). Oh, it must’ve been wonderful for an adolescent to hear a reputable man slowly chip away at the foundations of their upbringings. 

_I don’t know half of the fucked up shit that asshole taught those kids. But I could’ve known, and that haunts me even now._

But finally, when the children were fully indoctrinated, Pastor Marquis began his magnum opus.

_It probably would’ve never come out, not if that parent hadn’t shown up._

Aiden looked in the rear view mirror — the car was still behind him.

Pastor Marquis molested every last member of C.O.R.E. Fifteen kids in total. One by one, he’d called them into his office to _see if the Spirit would move_.

_Molested, raped, and always insisted that what they were doing was holy. Boys, girls, younger or older — it didn’t matter to him. Fuckin’ faggot. Fuckin’ queer-ass, pedo-faggot._

All that happened before the overnighter on July 11th, 2008. That Friday night, Pastor Marquis unleashed his C.O.R.E. members on the other twenty kids present; he released them to disclose their new doctrine as they played games and watched movies and ate hamburgers and pizza. And the children in C.O.R.E. eagerly mobilized on their unsuspecting victims like a wake of vultures. By 10 o’clock there were many new candidates for the youth pastor to _make holy_.

Pastor Marquis led the children to his office, making the lot of them wait in the lobby while he had his private, one-on-one sessions to _see if the Spirit would move_ . He was working with his fifth middle schooler when he was caught. _None of it would’ve been known if not for Frank Greene — god only knows how many years this shepherd got away with that shit._

Officer Greene dropped by that night to check on his daughter, Kayla, and when he couldn’t find her, or the pastor, he began to ask around. There were members of C.O.R.E. who gave Frank false information, but he eventually found out the pastor was up in his office.

He found the kids in the lobby — sure enough, Kayla was there — but the pastor… Later Officer Greene would say he felt a stirring in his spirit; perhaps some cop’s intuition, or maybe an angel spoke to him. But he opened the pastor’s door without knocking. It was the hardest thing Frank would ever do, not putting eight rounds into the pastor right where he sat, that is.

_So we moved from our house in south Blooming Heights to an apartment northeast,_ Aiden thought. _The church imploded shortly after the scandal was made public — all of those godly folks just couldn’t understand how a man could look so good on the outside, beloved by the congregation, yet have that evil lurking within._

But Blooming Heights found Officer Greene guilty; not in the case of Pastor Marquis, no. Six days after that Friday night, five pounds of confiscated cocaine was found in the officer’s locker, and rubber banded to the blocks of drugs was a slip of paper, the address of a known dealer scribbled on it. He got five years in Thornemonte — he would only serve six months before dying in a brawl that broke out in the weights room, his head smashed in by a sixty-pound barbell weight.

Blooming Heights forgot about Pastor Marquis after the cop was caught with drugs. The good folks of Gomorrah’s Ashes wouldn’t even remember the event, let alone know what happened to the pedophile pastor.

Aiden shook his head. It was painful to relive those times, but it was crucial to remember _the whispers_ , and what was on the line if he didn’t listen to them.

And as he drove down the street, he tried to clear his mind of the past and focus on _the whispers_.

  


**VI**

Jerry Taylor was the young man who nearly hit Aiden’s Charger as he ran the red, and he now drove a safe distance behind the reckless driver. He looked at his speedometer — _at least the idiot is driving past the limit,_ he thought. This made it easy for him to maintain space between them. _There’s too many crappy drivers in this city._

He assured himself one last time that he was going the proper speed limit — _yup, it’s morons like that raising my insurance rates._ _Why the fuck I should suffer because of them, I’ll never know._

Jerry prided himself on being _safe_ . He knew he couldn’t control the entirety of his environment — _only a lunatic would think that_ — but he could certainly mitigate the damage if he was practicing _safe_ behaviors.

For instance, Jerry had just come from a work function — _well, it ceased being work-related some five hours ago_ — at a local bar, _McInnes’_ (your typical Irish startup, having a rich history with the city, though the owners never got the devil’s payout they had hoped for when opening it up some eighty years ago), and he had stayed late into the night and early into the morning because it was the _safe_ thing to do. _I thought the boss would never fucking leave._ It was _safe_ to stay as long as the boss stayed. And it was _safe_ to leave shortly after the boss left. _I’ll never move up if I’m not noticed. And there are more than some among my peers who left early — mainly those fools with families._ Not that family wouldn’t be important one day — _far into the future._

In those small hours at McInnes’, Jerry had spent most of his time talking to the boss’s secretary, Sylvia, because that was the _safe_ thing to do, too. During the five months working the sales floor of _Big Bob’s Boots and Hunting_ , he had grown quite the appetite for the drop-dead gorgeous Russian — “It’s fuckin’ more than lust, man,” he had told a friend one Saturday evening; “It’s love.” — but he had never acted on his cravings. _Well, I rub one out to her every so often — when the porn isn’t working._ And even in his fantasies with her, he always wore a condom — _safe_. But acting on his hunger and _acting_ on it were two completely different things. Taking a chance and asking the ample-bosomed, curvy blond out was _not safe_.

_It’s fuckin’ judgement day for men,_ Jerry thought, his mind far away from the driver ahead of him. _This is the era of #MeToo, for fuck’s sake! All I need is for some crazy bitch to misinterpret_ anything _and I’m a screwed pooch._ So no, flirting, buying drinks, a light tap on the shoulder, or saying anything remotely controversial was off the table when it came to Sylvia or _any_ other woman.

He had dreamt of asking her on a date once — he woke up in a cold sweat that night. _‘Let’s make a deal,’_ Jerry thought, remembering the line he had used in his dream. _And by god, it worked!_ But reality was no dream — _if anything, my opener is just proof of how much I think about work._

_Let’s make a deal_ was the now famous phrase of Big Bob, owner of Big Bob’s Boots and Hunting. _The absolute state of my mind — my work is bleeding into my dreams!_ But he didn’t mind Sylvia popping up in the small hours — his dream had ended with him banging her brains out. Unfortunately, he had awakened before climax, his boxers a pitched tent, displaying the hard-on of an unsatisfied penis.

_But dammit if that wasn’t the best dream._

He had finished himself off and went back to sleep. And yes, he thought of Sylvia while he choked the chicken.

Jerry’s thoughts took a detour as he saw the red light down the street — and the red car stopped at it. _Shit,_ he thought. And he put his foot on the break, coming to a stop behind the Charger.

  


**VII**

Aiden was stopped at the intersection of Spencer and Hills, and one glance at his rear view informed him that his _good friend_ in the green Toyota was slowing to stop behind him. _I have nothing to be ashamed of,_ he thought. _I made a mistake, that’s all — if the bitch is hung up on it, that’s not my problem._

His phone _buzzed_ and he knew by the vibration pattern that it was a text from Becky. The music of Ghost still poured through the car speakers, uninterrupted by the incoming message. Aiden thought of peeking at the screen, took another look in the rear view, noticed the light turned green, and decided against seeing what his girlfriend wrote him.

_It’s probably not important,_ he thought as he drove through the intersection, not wanting the car behind to have justification to spill his load on his horn again. _She’s probably just texting to say she’s heading to bed — I’ll check it when I get home._

Home was coming up anyway. He only had two more blocks of Spencer to drive before making a few rights and lefts down small streets; his apartment complex would stand tall on his right. It was a small apartment, having two bedrooms, and sharing it with roomies made it even smaller, but it was home, the only one he knew after moving out of his mother’s place. _And those guys are more than family._

_You don’t get to choose family._ That was the great difference between family and friends. _Friends really are the family you choose._

Aiden thought of his girlfriend. She didn’t choose to be put up for adoption by her biological mother — the only mother she’d never know. And she didn’t choose to be adopted by her biracial, gay fathers. Likewise, she didn’t choose to be raised with Christian values — _I would’ve gotten laid tonight if she hadn’t._ But she _did_ choose to go out with him — _maybe her only mistake, perhaps a testament to women’s choices._

And that was life, he supposed. An endless war between the things thrust upon us and the things we chose.

_So where do_ the whispers _fit in?_

But before he could open _that_ can of worms, he saw the light ahead had five seconds to go before it turned red — _thank god for pedestrian countdown timers._ He looked in his rear view — he had a lead of two car lengths ahead of the green Toyota. _If I make the light, that bitch will have to run a red to tail me._

Aiden Reeves smirked as he accelerated. The countdown was at one second and he was pushing sixty — he wouldn’t make the light. _Too late,_ he thought.

The light turned yellow and he still had twenty feet to go. A brief image of him behind the wheel of a Formula 1 race car flashed through his mind. Ridiculous as it was, he imagined himself as the racer as he gunned it, knowing he would blow through the red.

For safety’s sake, he glanced down the street, first looking left, then right: the street was pitch black both ways — no headlights meant no cars coming. _That bitch’ll be left behind! Left to eat my shit!_

Aiden entered the intersection of Spencer and Yarsoth Ave. He ran the red light. And he wasn’t even halfway through before he heard the _screech_ of rubber on asphalt on his left — he barely had enough time to turn his head.

Everything happened so fast, and his mind didn’t register the death machine coming at him before the moment of impact. There were no lit headlights, and that’s what was seared into his mind — no headlights meant _no cars coming_ . But there _was_ a car coming. A car without the devil’s bulbous eyes shining out at him.

Aiden Reeves’ Charger was launched clear onto the right sidewalk upon impact, but Aiden wasn’t able to experience that. Aiden’s world faded to black seconds after the midnight machine T-boned his crimson car.

  


**VIII**

Molly Eldritch drove east down Yarsoth Ave. at a speed she was uncomfortable with. _I have to,_ she told herself. Because she had her _ritual_ ; it was a matter of keeping her sanity.

She wasn’t crazy, not by a long shot, but she knew her life had no meaning, and it was silly things like her little _ritual_ that made life worth living. Her _ritual_ was a dash of order in a disturbingly chaotic world.

She had no social life. She hadn’t gone to church since she was a little girl — _when was the last time I even_ saw _a church?_ And working the night shift as a hotel custodian sure as fuck didn’t add meaning to life — _I’m an utterly replaceable drone, propping up a den for drug dealers, gamblers, and whores._ But at least they were of the high-end variety.

In a deep cavern of Molly’s mind, she knew _something_ was wrong — to her consciousness it was like trying to solve a riddle while only knowing one of its five lines. The thing she _knew_ yet didn’t know was the _darkness_ of the street. Progressively, Yarsoth Ave. had fewer and fewer street lights going east, and she had come to the point where they were only in place at the intersections.

Of course, driving without overhead lights wasn’t much of a problem when the headlights were turned on. But Molly’s lights were not on. And that locked away part of her subconscious _tried_ to tell her. But she was thinking of more important things than to pay attention to what was wrong. She was thinking of her _ritual_ . At least, that’s what she _wanted_ to think about.

_Give him to me._

Molly jumped in her seat, her seat belt latching onto her uncomfortably, tugging on locks of her golden hair. Once again, the thought was more audible than a simple thought. It was a deep sound, too, not the voice of her mind she had come to know.

She glanced around, suddenly feeling vulnerable sitting in the driver’s seat of her black Jeep.

“I don’t know who _he_ is,” Molly said, feeling almost lunatic. But she had gotten used to the madness that sometimes came over her in the small hours of the morning. She didn’t know whether or not it was common for late working folks to experience such mental cracks — and she sure as fuck wouldn’t ask around to find out. _They’d lock me up for sure._

And then she figured it out — she knew who _he_ was. She _knew_ who the voice wanted. And she knew whose voice it was.

It was the voice of Human Resources at Glenstroke Hotel. H.R. _wanted_ her to — _give Mark over._

Mark — of course. It made sense now.

The madness of the small hours was guiding her to hand over the grade-A perv who ran the custodial department at Glenstroke. She would play the part of Judas and Mark the part of Jesus — _that’s how the story went, right?_ She couldn’t remember. But she would kiss Mark on the cheek just before H.R. beat the shit out of him.

_He must be big on my mind,_ she thought. And of course he was! It was because of Mark that her _ritual_ was in danger of being canceled. He had pulled her aside, and she wanted him punished because of it. And it would feel good, watching that shit show. It would feel good because Mark had possibly ruined her _ritual_.

She supposed Mark deserved to be turned in, never-mind most of what she knew of his _deeds_ came from gossips. _They wouldn’t lie._ She knew those — _unattractive_ — ladies, and they wouldn’t lie.

_Would I tell everything I’ve heard?_ A surge of confidence came over her — she was _actually_ seriously considering reporting Mark. Her heart fluttered with excitement. _Would my own experience be enough?_ She didn’t think so. He hadn’t been overly inappropriate with her.

_I could_ get _him there._

She smirked.

It wouldn’t be hard. All she’d have to do was pull Mark along just until he crossed a line — then she’d have him. The — _unattractive_ — ladies told her of the girl he had raped, but Molly didn’t think he’d go there again — _not with me._

The plan was coming together, and she loved it.

She saw the coming intersection — Spencer — and the red light that faced her. _It’s ok,_ she thought. _There’s still time for it to change._ She was fifty feet away and still gunning it for Tacos Fresco — she had no intention of slowing. It was down to the wire — nearly closing time.

_Give him to me._

It came to her again. But she thought the voice was hers this time. _Yes,_ she thought. _Mark is yours. If he’s lucky, I’ll suck his cock — that’ll be my Judas kiss._

Then the light turned green and she was nearly at the intersection. She looked at the speedometer and saw she was going fifteen miles an hour past what she had previously been uncomfortable with — it surprised her, true, but she was ok. There would’ve been enough time to slow down, sure, but the light was green now. _No one’s out driving at this time anyway._

It was Aunt Eva who had once told her, “You mustn’t be fearing the black man, Molly _—_ he be doin’ his job, same as the angels.”

Molly flinched from the memory — _where_ _the fuck did that come from?_

Aunt Eva had died years ago.

The memory was both confusing and unwanted — not that Molly didn’t care for her dead aunt. The remembered advice was just as peculiar now as it was when it was given. _I never feared Blacks, not then, not now — well, ‘cept for obvious gang-bangers. Real thug-types like the Blacks in that FKA gang._

Apparently, Aunt Eva was just as Christian as she was progressive, wanting to hammer both sets of values into her niece — the first didn’t stick, and the second was already hers.

Molly shook her head, fond of her quirky aunt.

And it was with thoughts of Aunt Eva in her mind when Molly entered the intersection of Spencer and Yarsoth Ave. heading east — her mind was slapped to attention when she saw the car running the red, northbound.

It was all Molly could do to keep from freezing up — she wanted to close her eyes, take her hands off the wheel, and pretend she was somewhere else. Somewhere far away from the reality that she was going to hit this car — this stupid car with its stupid driver at this fucking time in the early morning. But she couldn’t hide, couldn’t bring herself to stick her head in the ground like she was so accustomed to doing.

Then a sick thought — _feeling_ — came over her. _Why not speed up? Make the most of this. Go out with an impact on the world — something to show for yourself, no matter how pathetically small. Go on, put the pedal to the metal, baby — inject some meaning in your forgettable life._

It all came to her in the split seconds before impact. And it chilled her to the bones.

Of course, she slammed her foot on the brakes instead of accelerating into oblivion. And of course it made no difference — she still hit the Charger.

Molly Eldritch jerked forward as her Jeep crashed into the stupid car, and her mind went white as her head hit the deployed airbag. She couldn’t _think_ , not anymore, not as her consciousness threatened to slip from her.

She was dimly aware that the speed at which she had been traveling on impact carried her car onward. But she wouldn’t know how far until she regained control of her mind.

Darkness came over her like a veil over the bride.

  


**IX**

“Holy fuck!” Jerry said, unable to keep it in. He had seen the dumb fucker in the Charger try — and fail — to beat the light. He had seen the light turn red and had slowed to a stop to stay on the right side of the law. _But that dumb fucker ran the red._ And he had seen the terrible _accident_ — _not even a retard could call what just happened an accident_ — happen right before his eyes.

He still couldn’t believe it, even though he was _watching_ the smoke rise from both cars, one of which — the Charger — was clear up on the sidewalk, the other car in the _accident_ had _plowed_ it — _like a fucking linebacker!_ — to its current resting place. _What the fuck?!_

He still couldn’t believe his eyes, even as the light turned green for him. His foot remained on the brakes like a stone at the base of a pyramid.

His mind reeled, replaying the _accident_ over and over. _What did I just see? What the fuck did I just see?_

Jerry was only three car lengths behind the idiot speeder by the time the light turned red and that dumb fucker ran it. He had shook his head in vague disgust as he slowed his car to stop at the light. Then that other car came out of nowhere, speeding just like the dumb fucker, tires _screaming_ as the car blazed through the intersection, unable to stop the collision. He hadn’t seen the car coming, and he doubted if the dumb fucker had either — _he’d be the dumbest fucker alive if he had and still tried to beat it._ The _screaming_ car was like a charging bull hitting a child after that; it hit the Charger square on the driver’s door, forcing the red door into bent submission. But a T-bone wasn’t enough, no. That bull let down his horns and gored the child in the stomach, pushing him through two street lanes and onto the sidewalk.

Molly’s Jeep was the bull of course.

Jerry Taylor finally snapped out of his stroke of dumbfoundedness, and he grabbed for his phone. He would call 911 and get out of his car to see if either party needed help — he knew they would.

  


**X**

Molly gained consciousness to the sound of a low moan and hissing. She had briefly thought she was the one moaning, but she realized it came from the man on the sidewalk. _But_ which _man_ , she thought, seeing the man kneeling over the man lying on the sidewalk. _The lying one, silly_. Her rationale slowly came back. The hissing, however, she easily identified as coming from under the hood of her Jeep.

“Stop the moaning,” Molly said in a thin voice — and she realized with a low horror that she was annoyed by the sound. She looked around her car — it was like trying to look through cheesecloth, her eyes still recovering from the… airbag.

“My god,” she said, _remembering_. “Oh god.”

Her eyes dropped to the airbag and she saw the dark stain on the white — her hand went to her head, feeling around for the blood. She found it on her upper lip, still damp on her peach fuzz — the taste of blood suddenly hit her, as if a faucet had been turned on at her discovery — and the blood was dried down her chin and part of her neck.

_Dried blood — how long have I been out?_

It didn’t matter — what mattered was what would happen _now_.

She looked out the cracked windshield, now realizing it _was_ cracked, and she saw — perhaps for the first time — the other car which hers was smashed into. It was like a nightmare amalgamation of twisted metal — like a mad car salesmen had come and welded two perfectly good cars into one unholy abomination. She nearly threw up with the realization that it was like that scary movie, _The Human Centipede_. Then she threw up anyway on the passenger seat.

_Why did I ever watch that movie?_

But she knew why; in a sick way, she was fascinated with grotesque images and subversive elements — even if they left her with a dirty feeling afterward. _Speaking of,_ she thought. _There’s a_ grotesque image _if I ever saw one_. She was brought back to the land of the wakened, the grim pictures of the T-boned car and the man bleeding on the sidewalk burned into her mind.

_I’m responsible_. The thought hit her harder than her Jeep had hit the man’s car, and she felt a crippling weight in her chest.

She had to do _something_.

Resigning herself to help in any way she could, Molly reached for her door’s handle, grabbed it, and — “Argh!” — her left hand was aflame, pain searing all up her forearm, overtaking her elbow, and reaching into her shoulder. She released the handle, her hand recoiling. She examined her hands, only now realizing that they _both_ felt as if they had been pressed into lava — dark rings were around both wrists like handcuffs. _Bruised?_ But how? She would have to figure out that mystery later.

“Help,” Molly said, and it came out like a dying woman’s whisper. She coughed to clear her throat. “Help!” This time the sound carried, and she was dimly aware of the distant sirens. _Police? Maybe an ambulance?_

The man who leaned over the other man turned to her. He stared into the tinted windows of her Jeep for a small hours moment, and she thought — only for a second — that he might be as likely to _hurt_ her as to help. “Hey!” he said at last. “You’re awake! Let’s get you out of there!”

The man sprung to, running around the collided cars, leaving the bleeding man on the sidewalk, and came to her door. He tried the handle — then he tried it again. “It’s locked,” he said, his brilliant eyes looking at the woman inside.

Molly stared at the man’s face. It wasn’t a hard face to look at — in fact, the man looked kind, beautiful even. She supposed it was the face of your everyday White dude, a man of about thirty-five with short, blond hair and a (freshly) shaved jaw. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes because of the window’s tinting, but she suspected they would be a piercing blue. She just wasn’t sure what kind of man would be driving at two-fifty — three o’clock? Three-thirty? — in the morning. _He’s just as likely, if not more, to be a raping murderer than an upstanding, civil citizen_.

“Come on,” he said, trying the handle again. “Let’s get you out — I don’t bite.” And a grin came over his face. A grin which looked to Molly as if it had just slipped out — involuntarily.

A shit eating grin — _goddamn, I never should’ve watched that movie._

_He’s just nervous,_ she tried to convince herself. _When was the last time_ I _had to help two complete strangers out of a mess of their own making?_ And she nearly unlocked the door — what stopped her was the _moans_ of the man on the sidewalk, returned and more dire than before.

She looked at the man on the sidewalk, seeing him for the first time unimpeded by the other man’s back.

Blood was spilled on the sidewalk all around the man, and his clothes were soaked in it. His face was nearly unrecognizable as a man’s, and his exposed skin was swelled and crimson.

Molly nearly threw up again. _I’m responsible,_ she thought. And she turned to the man outside her door — his eyes were two glowing rings of gold as he stared at her. _Was he watching me this whole time?_ Gooseflesh took her arms. She then saw, perhaps for the first time, the man’s white suit, and the single drop of blood stained on his collar.

Yet another of Aunt Eva’s lines of wisdom came to her then; “Evil must be invited inside.”

_Did the man on the sidewalk_ invite _this man in?_ Either way, she resolved not to.

And as if the man in the white suit had heard her thoughts, he grabbed the door handle, pulling, pulling, pulling, saying: “Unlock the door!”

Molly screamed, flinching away from the door. “Go away!” she said, but the man continued pulling on the handle. Then something happened to his face, something perhaps always there but only now noticed: it was as if a ghostly image was superimposed over his flesh, and she could now see a face like a dead, rotting man. She screamed all the louder.

He pulled and pulled, not minding the woman’s screams, and he pulled some more until he heard the sound of boots against the sidewalk — his golden eyes shot to see the man walking.

He was almost half a block away, but even from that distance, the man in the white suit and Molly could hear his boots hitting the sidewalk. He was dressed in black, wearing a long overcoat and a wide brimmed cowboy hat — all black. He walked as if he had not a care in the world, looking off into the starry sky.

Molly felt a strange sensation flutter throughout her body at the sight of the man in black, and when she looked for the lunatic at her door, she found that he was gone. _Gone?_ She hadn’t heard him leave, nor did she see it, but the man in the white suit, the man with the face like a corpse, was no longer outside her door.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

  


**XI**

Aiden lay on the sidewalk, barely conscious, his life reduced to a slow inhale and exhale. He had few thoughts, and he had no hope left of surviving this fateful night. He no longer cared that the _bitch_ had been driving behind him, no longer cared that he was still a virgin, no longer cared what song his iPhone played — he no longer cared.

His world became like the fires of hell, pain searing the whole of his body — _it’s because of the white man,_ he thought.

He was partially right.

Aiden had indeed invited the man in the white suit in. And that man helped him out of his Charger, laying him down on the sidewalk.

But Aiden hadn’t expected this good Samaritan to be the devil in disguise.

The man in white had ravaged Aiden’s dying body, biting into him and drinking of his blood, eating of his flesh. Was it all in his head? No, it was real, the lot of it, the whole terrifying truth, and he knew it.

Aiden didn’t know why the man left him, but he thanked his lucky stars when he did. He didn’t know how much longer he would live with a man feeding on him.

And shortly after the man in the white suit leapt away from the scene, Aiden breathed in one final time, exhaling an eternal breath. His soul fled his body, and his body perished.

  


**XII**

Jerry Taylor had nearly gotten out of his green Toyota to help both drivers when he saw another man, a man wearing a white suit, a man previously unseen, run up to help. He decided then to call 911 first, then he would assist in helping the drivers. He called 911, and after his call, he decided to stay in his car, mainly because of how the man in the white suit looked at him.

_It gave me the creeps,_ he remembered. _Then he lept away? What the fuck was that?!_

About ten minutes after the man in the white suit came onto the scene, and shortly after the man had terrorized the woman in the black car, Jerry _saw_ the man leap into the air as if his shoes were made of springs, though no pair of shoes could make a man jump over a building, which was precisely what this man had done. In a night full of unbelievable sights, _that_ had topped them all.

And after the leaper-man sprung away, Jerry’s attention was drawn to the car wreck once again. He was just about to get out of his green Toyota when he saw the man in black walking toward the scene some thirty feet away.

_What the hell is going on around here?!_ he thought.

It was crazy, but he thought the man clad in black looked like his boss, Big Bob, or Robert Hannarch. Both men wore black duds and black cowboy boots. Both men were also tall in stature — Big Bob was likely six-foot, eight-inches. But the two main differences he could see from this distance and through the darkness was — one — his boss wore a white cowboy hat with a deeply curved brim, whereas this man had a black had with a flat brim, and — two — he could hear the _clop, clop_ of this man in black’s footfalls from twenty-five feet away.

It was a sound that gave him gooseflesh — _clop, clop, clop_ . Onward toward the scene the man in black walked. _Clop, clop, clop_ — until he halted, the thumbs of both gloved hands hooking into his pants near his large, silver belt buckle.

Jerry stared at the man, and he could’ve sworn the man was staring at _him_ . _Gulp_ — instant shame washed over him from the sound he had made. _He’s not looking at me,_ he thought — _hoped_.

And as if his mind had been read by the man, this man in black’s grave stare clearly directed at the accident — more precisely, at the man bleeding out on the sidewalk.

Jerry turned his gaze to where the man in black now looked — and he heard a sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He heard the final exhale of the dying man, a loud, grotesque sound, one that was almost beautiful in its finality. But it was not a breath breathed of flesh and blood, no, it was the sound of Aiden’s soul exiting his body.

And as Jerry watched, he saw Aiden’s soul rising out of the corpse. It was a thing made of pure, flaming light — harder to look upon than the setting sun.

He shielded his eyes from the extremity of it all, trying his damnedest to _see_ what he could — what he allowed himself to see.

In this way, Jerry Taylor watched Aiden Reeves ascend into whatever afterlife there was, and though he didn’t hear what fate awaited the man, he instantly knew the name given to the dead man.

“Aiden,” Jerry said, wondering if it was the sight of the soul that gave him this insight. “Aiden Zachary Reeves.”

  


**XIII a.**

Molly Eldritch, while aware enough to see the man in black, had not seen Aiden’s soul rise out of his body. She did, however, hear the dying man’s final exhale, and she was able to discern what it meant.

_Shit,_ she thought, tears on the brink of bursting from her eyes. _My fault — all my fault._

But she had no time to cry, not with the movement she saw out of the corner of her eye. It was the man in black, and she turned her eyes to see him tipping his hat, a grave expression on his long face. He put his hands in his coat pockets, turned on his heels, the flaps of his coat blowing out behind him, and he walked the way he’d come — the _clop, clop, clop_ of his cowboy boots against the concrete echoing throughout the street.

Molly was almost sad he was leaving — she reached a hand out to him, touching her Jeep’s window.

“ _Yes_ , your soul is mine!” a malignant voice boomed from above the amalgamation of cars. It was a voice like a thousand dying hounds, all crying out in fury of their festering wounds. It was the voice given to a queen of black widows, one hundred eyes focused on the poor cricket grasped by her five-hundred legs. It was the voice of four-million flies, six-hundred sixty-six legions of putrid entanglement, loud and buzzing in greedy delight.

Molly’s vague sadness ejected her body, unbidden. And she looked from whence the voice came before she could think better of it. What she saw she was not ready for, but she couldn’t peel her eyes away — they were stuck seeing evil even though she wished in that moment to be blind.

The demon was not dressed in a reaper’s robe, nor did he wield a scythe. He was a bulbous mass of ever-shifting, bubbling flesh, a thing which appeared more dead than alive. His face was a canine’s skull, with glowing flames of vomit-green for eyes, a mouth filled with silver fangs, and two twisting horns shooting and bending outwards behind him, then a wave of noxious flesh would wash over it, granting it the brief features of a hellish wolf. This wave of blighted flesh rushed over the whole of the demon, never fully covering his large form, his skeletal frame exposed wherever the flesh was not at the moment. He had claws which would fit a prehistoric animal better than he, so long and thick and sharp.

Molly briefly thought the demon’s claws were a form of overcompensation, but this thought was pushed aside by the horror of it all.

And he had a reptilian tale, complete with large spines, all knotted and discordant. He was a giant of a demon, at least nine feet in stature, hovering twenty feet in the air over the scene with large, flapping, membranous wings. A twisted crown of pointed iron rested atop his skull just below his horns, but this was the only article of any kind about his person, for this grotesquely fat lord of sins was naked.

_Oh, there it is,_ Molly thought, amused in a moment of sick fascination. There was a part of her — some deep, dark part — which actually _enjoyed_ eyeing the demon over. And her eyes finally rested on the _thing_ for which overcompensation was desired.

A proportionately small, blistered cock drooped above two low-hanging, grapefruit sized testicles.

All of her surveying was done over a matter of seconds.

_My god,_ she thought, amazed that she would see such a thing before death, amazed that she had not _died_ or become _insane_ at the sight of it, amazed that the demon seemed to have no interest with her.

“Oh yes,” the demon said, his blazing eyes blistering with heat at every word. “Your soul is _mine_ ! All _mine_!”

Molly then saw a peculiar thing: the demon lord had outstretched hands, his skeletal hands extended with claws wide and lusting, and between those hands was a ball — the size of one of the demon’s testicles — of purest light. But that light was dying, becoming like an eclipsed sun. She then made the connections: the light was the dead man’s _soul_ , and because of her, he would now be in the possession of this demon of filth.

There was no low horror in this realization. It was like finding out her lover was having a sodomizing affair with her father. Yes, _that_ was the kind of horror she now felt — and she now knew this second horror as well as the first.

“Time’s up, runt,” the demon said, and he grabbed the ball of light, holding up the soul above his canine snout.

_God, I think I’m going to puke again,_ Molly thought, not ready to watch a soul be swallowed by a demon, not ready to look away.

“Stop.”

The demon lord of sins halted, his glowing eyes dimming from the command.

Molly looked all around but could not see a manifestation to pair the voice with.

The demon shrugged and proceeded to lower the soul into his mouth.

“Are you deaf, Carnivale?” the unknown voice bellowed.

Carnivale, the fat demon, former prince of powers, looked all about, searching just as desperate as the woman below to find the owner of the voice.

“Who art thou?” Carnivale said, confusion written on his pestilent head.

“Oh, how you’ve fallen, Carnivale,” the voice said with tenderness.

Carnivale became angry. “Show yourself!”

“You do not command me, lesser demon of even lesser stock.” The return was authoritative and did not match Carnivale’s fury. “You do not have the power, oh former prince.”

Carnivale was shaken to his skeletal core. “You know much and more about me,” he said. “Yet you give me no indication as to who my guest is — very rude. Yes, very rude indeed. How am I to know who I can and can not command when such as yourself will not reveal to me thine station?”

“Oh, how I _love_ to torment thee,” the voice said. “Take a guess — a wild stab — if you dare.”

The demon let out a low growl.

And Molly was terrified by what she heard, her spirit thoroughly disturbed.

“Beelzebub?” Carnivale said, a trimmer in his voice. “Asmodeus perhaps?”

The unseen entity chuckled lowly, and the sound turned Molly’s blood cold.

“No, no, no,” Carnivale said. “Surely not one of the Six, the Princes of Hell. But what of the Seven, the Lords of Sin? Abaddon? Belial?”

“Wickedest of servants, Carnivale, you are ever so close, but this is taking far too long.”

“Perhaps of the Nine, the Rulers of Flesh,” Carnivale said, seeming not to hear, the shifting mass of flesh ever moving in pulsing waves. “Apollyon or Pan — yes, I think we’re getting there. But perhaps lower in station still.”

“Let us bargain, Carnivale,” the voice boomed. “Together, we can come to… an agreement.”

“Shut up!” Carnivale said, a skeletal hand clasping the darkening soul. “I’m trying to fuckin’ think here!” The green flames of his eyes blazed with anger.

An unsettling silence hung over the scene. Molly could _feel_ the rage of the unseen entity, and she knew the demon flying over her could feel it, too.

“It is bad enough that we must use the tongues of man,” the voice said. “Bad enough that we can not create our own. But must you degrade yourself by using their vulgarities too? Do you not have pride?”

“You are no lowly demon,” Carnivale said, his flesh quivering.

“No, Carnivale,” the voice said, and now there appeared above the demon two giant, slit eyes, both glowing a crimson-orange. “Now, it is time to bargain.”

“Bargain?” Carnivale said, trembling where he flew. “Wh-what is there to bargain over?”

“Your crown, princeling.”

“My crown?!” Carnivale said, one hand instinctively rising to touch the iron, the other still holding the darkening soul. “I will not bargain with _my_ city!”

“I am Mephistopheles, and your crown belongs to me!” the voice said, rage pouring from the two crimson eyes.

Carnivale looked as if he were struck by a freight train. “Mephi —” was all he managed to say.

“Carnivale,” Mephistopheles said gentilly. “My lieutenants are at your throne as we speak, relieving your guards of their duties.”

“No,” Carnivale said urgently.

“Not a single demon need be sent to hell this night,” Mephistopheles said. “So long as you make a peaceful transition of power.”

“Transition of… power?” Carnivale said in his state of shock. “Mephistopheles, I beg you; I’ve been prince of this city since its inception. I built this place into the empire of sin you see today. For a century, I worked tirelessly, whispering and coaxing, to make this a haven for kid-fuckers and whores. I’ve made impotent, through sin and scandal, nearly every Saint who dared take root here… and you want me to give it all to you?”

“Yes.”

“No! It’s not happening!” Carnivale said. “I’ve worked too hard for this!”

“Lucifer curse you!” Mephistopheles said, his eyes closing. “I tried.” Then his eyes opened with terrible purpose written within. “You will be sent to the Third Circle of Hell. You will treat with Cerberus, that great worm, or you will be swallowed by him, it matters not to me. Be glad I am not sending you further down, for while you have been a glutton, you have also been a traitor, worthy of the frozen lake of the Ninth Circle.”

“Mephistopheles, please!” Carnivale said. “Many cities serve two princes; look to New York, where Mammon and Molech share in mass-greed and child sacrifice. We could reign like them. Look to Vatican City, where Baphomet and Apollyon sow sexual immorality and blasphemies. Look to London, where the Prince of Persia and Baal lead a dual siege. You need not send me away; can we not bargain?”

“It’s too late to bargain.”

“But you’re Mephistopheles! Bargaining is what you do!” Carnivale’s reptilian tail quivered as he spoke. He looked at the ball of light in his hand, and he extended it to the other, higher-stationed demon. “Look, I have a soul to bargain with!”

Mephistopheles’s hateful eyes directed at the soul, and they filled with glee. “This soul is not yours — he’s marked for the pit.”

“Take it!” Carnivale said. “Just don’t send me away!”

“I _will_ take it, but only once you’ve been sent to hell,” Mephistopheles said. “Now, be gone, imp, I tire with you!” And the outline of a giant, clawed hand briefly appeared from the darkness of night.

Carnivale _squealed_ , as his body erupted in purple flame. His flesh gave way to bone, the fat melting off and dripping to the asphalt. Then his skeletal frame burned to ash, and his screams became like echoes.

Molly watched in stunned silence, her broken body throbbing with pain. Nothing remained of the demon but the crown which now fell.

“Now, Aiden,” Mephistopheles said, and with an unseen hand, he snatched up the iron crown before it hit the ground. “It’s time to come home.” And from beneath those large, hateful eyes, an abyss opened wide, all fanged and darker than night, a gullet of eternal void.

Aiden’s soul was devoured by the maw.

And Molly passed out.

  


**XIII b.**

When she came to, the hateful eyes of the demon were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Molly saw the multitude of fluorescent eyes looking down at her. And she knew she was at a hospital — St. Gressil’s to be exact. But even if Mephistopheles’s eyes weren’t on her, they were forever burned into her memory.

_Was it a dream?_ She might never _truly_ know. All she knew was what she saw, and it didn’t matter whether it had been a highly detailed dream, hallucinations brought on by severe stress or brain trauma, or if it was a vision of what happened beyond human understanding. She had seen it, whatever _it_ was.

Could she believe in demons? Beings so outstandingly overpowered compared to humans. Creatures of spirit and fleshly communion. Evil incarnate. _Lucifer — evil personified._ She thought she could, because she _had_ seen.

She looked up from her hospital bed, seeing out her room’s narrow window and into the hall, and she saw the back of the police officer who stood outside. She looked down beneath the thin covers, seeing the dried blood on her custodial uniform — _the accident_.

The police would want her statement — _I was speeding_. She could go to jail, she realized. Because there had been a death, the cops would definitely check the intersection's video recording for that night.

_I’m fucked,_ she thought. She then remembered the queer reaction Mephistopheles had had to his subordinate’s use of a vulgar word — _so strange_.

But Molly would tell the police everything — well, everything that happened in the plane of existence known to the cops. And if she struck gold and didn’t go to jail, she would have much to think on and explore.

_Demons, the paranormal,_ she thought. _A new world is reaching out to me — how could I live with myself if I didn’t reach back?_


End file.
